desperately seeking motivation

Currently I am experiencing a serious lack of motivation.  I seem to have run out of steam.  There is still plenty happening, I just don't seem to be able to get excited, I feel a bit flat.  I am neglecting everything; the garden, the house, my course work, friends and family, my book, my get fit regime. Clearly I need to do something about this or I'll be as useful to Jake as Robert Mugabe at a peace convention.

My sophisticated plan to combat this can be summed up very simply; get a kitten and book a holiday. So that's what I've done!

Merkin (snigger) is a 5 month old black kitten who spends his time shouting, annoying our other cat Milo and racing around like a loon.  He took to Jake immediately and the two of them spent last weekend amusing each other.  He's cute isn't he?

Puerto Banus is where I am going for four nights in mid September.  I am going completely on my own (eek) and plan to spend my time lying by the pool, reading, sleeping and walking.  This is all a bit of a revelation as there is absolutely no way I would have been happy to leave Jake for this long 8 weeks ago.  It's a real testament to how amazing the team at the rehab hotel are and how happy and settled they have made Jake.  A huge thank you to the friends and family who are going to spend time with my Jake that week so I don't need to worry about him.

In other news, I start work again on the 1st October for 20 hours a week and the few adhoc hours I have done over the last couple weeks have reminded me that actually I do have a brain and it is good to use it!

Hopefully all this will help me to get back to being me so I can continue to be useful to my gorgeous Jake and keep on keeping on.

As I sit here writing this I can hear banging, crashing, swearing and some hilarious singing along to the radio.  Yes, I've got the builders in.  I have, sadly, had my last, long soak in our bath which was ripped out yesterday to make way for a wet room that Jake can safely use. I have spent many happy hours choosing tiles and fittings and generally irritating the builders by repeatedly changing my mind; it's almost like having Jake here to annoy!

That said, I am still able to annoy Jake on a regular basis as I am at the rehab hotel at least twice a week and he usually comes home for 24 hours each weekend, so plenty of opportunity to be irritatingly wifely.  

The good news from the rehab hotel is that Jake has been assessed as ready to transfer off the behavioural pathway and onto the mainstream rehab pathway, which means stepping up the therapy and hopefully the progress.  As a non medical professional I am still regularly wrong footed and upset by some of Jake's behaviour, but they continue to reassure me that it is perfectly normal for someone with Jake's deficits and they will continue to work with him to help him to manage this.  

The most upsetting aspect of this is other peoples' reaction to Jake's outbursts; people who don't understand about brain injury and assume that the behaviour is the man.  This led to me wanting to repeatedly smash a haughty, thoughtless receptionist's head against her desk at the ortho clinic we visited yesterday.  Apparently Jake's behaviour would 'frighten the children' they sometime have visiting and it 'wouldn't be fair' for them to have to be there at the same time as him.  Well guess what; there is nothing 'fair' about any of this.  Jake didn't choose to be knocked off his bike by a careless driver, he didn't choose his severe brain injury and sometimes he is so anxious, confused, fatigued, overloaded and frustrated that he looses control.  No, not fair at all you snotty cow.  Thankfully I'm a big believer in karma, so I'm confident that she'll get hers.

I suppose these are things we will need to get used to; rest assured I will continue to fiercely protect my beautiful boy from these idiots; he deserves so much better from the world.

Maybe that should be my motivation?